"Shopping Online" has been easy and the thing to do for quite a while, however many people are creatures of habit.
But force them to stay at home for 2-3 weeks and form new habits...

This could be a watershed event that gets millions of people hooked on buying things online (Amazon), using "curbside pickup" and grocery delivery, etc.

"Why didn't we do this earlier?" people will say.

People do a lot of things "just cuz" if it doesn't make a huge difference one way or the other.

But habits, once formed, are hard to break. Especially when those habits involve MORE convenience.

Mark my words: brick and mortar will NEVER fully recover after Coronavirus. Not in a year, not in 2 years. Amazon is just too convenient AND they have the lowest prices on many items. Ordering online has slowly become BETTER IN EVERY WAY over the past 10 years, but it took Coronavirus to coalesce the movement, to wake many people up, to bring things to a head.

If you study human history, you appreciate what I'm saying. Every revolution is built up for many years. Then a TRIGGER EVENT occurs -- the assassination of an archduke for example -- to set everything off. But things were building up for years before that. That's how history always works.

Coronavirus is "the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand" for brick-and-mortar stores.

And I for one welcome the Brave New World. I like convenience. I'm a busy man with 8 children, 5 acres, a full time job, and many side businesses, interests and hobbies. I don't have time for shopping. It's a huge chore. That's why I order everything on Amazon that I can justify (read: it's the cheapest, or tied for cheapest) My wife and I would buy even MORE things online if we weren't so frugal. But more and more, online is offering the lowest prices. The price premium disappears from more items with every passing month.

P.S. Amazon is hiring ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND new employees to meet new demand. In the meantime, 1-day shipping has become 3 days, and 2-day shipping has become 4 days.

Brick and mortar does cause extra overhead and, therefore, more money.  Of course, if Amazon gets a monopoly they could raise prices.

I wasn't saying it was a good thing -- just that it was going to happen. There might be competition for online dollars (Wal-mart, Sams Club, etc.) and that would certainly be a good thing. But brick and mortar is going to go the way of the phone book, payphones, CDs, land line telephones, etc.

There are some things that it's difficult to buy online -- concrete, compost, topsoil, 10' sections of metal fence rail, etc. -- those are cheaper to buy locally.

I wasn't saying it was a good thing -- just that it was going to happen. There might be competition for online dollars (Wal-mart, Sams Club, etc.) and that would certainly be a good thing. But brick and mortar is going to go the way of the phone book, payphones, CDs, land line telephones, etc.

There are some things that it's difficult to buy online -- concrete, compost, topsoil, 10' sections of metal fence rail, etc. -- those are cheaper to buy locally.

I don't disagree.  I think that brick-and-mortal stores for most goods were going away anyway.  Certainly the little Mom-n-Pop shops can't compete.  I do think that restaurants will survive and come out OK on the other side.  Some will certainly fold, but then new ones will open.

"Shopping Online" has been easy and the thing to do for quite a while, however many people are creatures of habit.
But force them to stay at home for 2-3 weeks and form new habits...

This could be a watershed event that gets millions of people hooked on buying things online (Amazon), using "curbside pickup" and grocery delivery, etc.

"Why didn't we do this earlier?" people will say.

People do a lot of things "just cuz" if it doesn't make a huge difference one way or the other.

But habits, once formed, are hard to break. Especially when those habits involve MORE convenience.

Mark my words: brick and mortar will NEVER fully recover after Coronavirus. Not in a year, not in 2 years. Amazon is just too convenient AND they have the lowest prices on many items. Ordering online has slowly become BETTER IN EVERY WAY over the past 10 years, but it took Coronavirus to coalesce the movement, to wake many people up, to bring things to a head.

...

And I for one welcome the Brave New World. I like convenience. I'm a busy man with 8 children, 5 acres, a full time job, and many side businesses, interests and hobbies. I don't have time for shopping. It's a huge chore. That's why I order everything on Amazon that I can justify (read: it's the cheapest, or tied for cheapest) My wife and I would buy even MORE things online if we weren't so frugal. But more and more, online is offering the lowest prices. The price premium disappears from more items with every passing month.

P.S. Amazon is hiring ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND new employees to meet new demand. In the meantime, 1-day shipping has become 3 days, and 2-day shipping has become 4 days.

I hear what you are saying, and I don't entirely disagree with it, but local retailers provide jobs for your neighbors, and it's good for the community for people to have jobs and to be working.   I have seen what it is like for communities to be decimated due to large employers pulling out.  You end up with empty storefronts, people without hope, people desperately trying to sell their belongings at flea markets, public assistance, and far too often, prescription and illicit drug abuse.  People lose hope and they go in search of an anodyne.

Even though my present community is in no danger of massive loss of jobs, communities function better when you keep as much money local as possible --- distributism and the principle of subsidiary at work, after a fashion.   That said, very often I need goods that simply aren't available locally, or not without calling and driving all over town, and online is the only reasonable alternative.

I wasn't saying it was a good thing -- just that it was going to happen. 

I thought you said in your opening post "And I for one welcome the Brave New World"

I thought you said in your opening post "And I for one welcome the Brave New World"

To be more clear:
There are downsides as well, but I'm willing to deal with them in this particular case. 
Buying from the cheapest and the most convenient source "works for me".
I can't fight the trend, and I'm not going to try. We're not going to have a great "human" (as opposed to inhuman) system until after the chastisement anyhow. We have to pick our battles. I've chosen other ones.

Buy online with what? 

Loads of people have no job and no income.

There is 1 trillion in overnight debt. 

The banking system will collapse.  How are you going to pay? 

This is the collapse of the global economy.  Amazon won't be functioning in a year. 

So much for buying from Amazon

https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/amazon-warehouse-employee-confirms-first-known-coronavirus-case